Robots against the Coronavirus: the need for a new generation of robots to help global society

Abstract

The explosion of the pandemic and the need for social distancing has meant that robotics has more and more space in our daily lives. The Coronavirus epidemic (COVID-19 or SARS-CoV-2) presents us with a challenge that we are currently facing, and which globally highlights our fragility. This fragility and consequent loneliness is perceived more and more every day; that implies the importance of using new technologies able to cope with a new aspect that had not been thought of so far, but which is now dictated by the pandemic consequences. As a result, these new issues brought by the pandemic imply an increasing need to make robots more and more intelligent and empathic with human beings.